


How to Become a Living Goddess in Five Simple Steps

by makiyakinabe



Category: Diamonds and Toads (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-05-16
Packaged: 2018-06-08 17:21:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6866008
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/makiyakinabe/pseuds/makiyakinabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hetty only wanted some appreciation.</p><p>Little did she know that life had a way of turning desire into reality in the worst way possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How to Become a Living Goddess in Five Simple Steps

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dreamiflame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamiflame/gifts).



_1\. Be chosen._

* * *

 

Hetty chose to be kind.

It was a work in progress, to be honest.

Fanny and Mamma were not the most pleasant people to be around.

When Pappa was alive they bothered to maintain a modicum of civility, Mamma including her on second thought in her inquiries to Fanny ("What would you like your Pappa to bring back for you on his next trip, Fanny dear? I hear that ivory powder boxes are all the rage in the Capitol... Oh would you like something too, Hetty"?), and Fanny making a show of offering to share her dresses, makeup and dolls whenever Pappa was nearby ("Oh come here, sister! You were just the person I was looking for! I have a dress of pink muslin and lace roses that I fear I may have outgrown. Would you like to try it?). Hetty, Mamma and Fanny all knew that she'd turn them down humbly, no matter what she asked, and when she did so as a matter of course their voices became so high-pitched and sugary that Hetty had to resist wincing every time.

When they recieved word that Pappa had lost his life in a carriage accident, Fanny and Mamma dropped the façade at once. Within the course of a single day, Hetty found herself degraded from daughter to housemaid. Her room was repurposed as a display room for Fanny's dolls and her dresses and hair ornaments, taken by Mamma and regifted, of course, to Fanny. The oversweet tone Fanny and Mamma adopted when talking to her was gone, and while this was a great relief to Hetty, the sneering and snapping that took its place was in some ways even worse.

Often, Hetty found herself pausing to looked at Fanny (square face fashionably painted, dark hair styled into ringlets that elegantly cascaded down a shoulder, neck encircled with a necklace of gold and ruby) and then down at herself (hands rough and dusty with labour, blonde hair knotted with wisps askew, a dirty apron tied around the waist), she felt so hateful it made her sick.

How satisfying it would be, to sneer and snap at Fanny and Mamma in return! And they'd most certainly deserve it, too.

But the last thing Hetty wanted was to turn into someone so unpleasant, so willing to deny a person happiness and so quick to laugh gleefully at the first sign of tears.

So Hetty chose to be kind instead.

Needless to say, when the strange poor woman at the fountain declared that she would be repaid in flowers or jewels that fell out her mouth whenever she spoke, Hetty thanked her politely and forgot about it by the time she arrived home.

 

* * *

  _2\. Let your devotees come to you._

* * *

 

When Hetty made it to the closest village, weary and worn, pleading for food and shelter, everyone gathered around her at once. They stared at the roses, pearls and diamonds, haphazardly strewn in Hetty's wake, and at Hetty herself, face pale and hair tousled but still visibly beautiful in spite of it all, in silent awe.

The villagers were simple folk, most of which had never left their place of birth to go any further than the surrounding woods for gathering wild mushrooms and catching trout. To them the Capitol, with its castle of marble and gates of gold (commissioned and crafted by the great masters of Auelia, claimed the village physician, one of the fortunate few to have set foot outside the woods, sketching a scene of splendour and might) might as well be as faraway as the fabled city of Atlantis. To them, King Maximillian the Mighty, a copy of whose portrait stood proudly above the hearth in the blacksmith's home (everyone agreed it was an unsound investment, but to the artist's credit, the painting _was_ larger than life and the medals pinned to his breast _did_ shine brighter than any gold coin), with the news of his triumphs in battle so glorious and unlike anything the villagers had ever known, might as well the stuff of legends.

Hetty was unlike anything they had ever seen before. Though the beauty stood in the centre of the ring they'd naturally formed around her, unwashed and unkept, so dazzling was her beauty nonetheless that she seemed at once approachable and faraway, a queen without a kingdom. To speak with her would be a frightening honour, one that each of them instantly knew they were most unworthy of.

But not speaking was a prospect just as frightening. What if the beauty vanished in a blink of an eye, never to grace them with her lovely heart-shaped face or voice that rang like bells ever again?

It was the latter that led them to elbowing one another in the ribs, furiously whispering and hissing among themselves.

("Go on, Frank, aren't you in love with the sound of your own voice?" "What? _No!_ You do it, Bessy." "You must be mad, man, can't you see I'm not in my best dress?")

Hetty, brow furrowed in confusion, watched blearily as the villagers pushed and jostled until one man in a threadbare suit was pushed out, stumbling into the centre of the ring.

The man dove to the ground.

"What is your name, your worship?" he cried.

Hetty blinked. She'd never heard of a village where everyone was so hospital they treated visitors like gods, not from Pappa. Then again, she was so busy trying to put as much distance between herself, Mamma and the house that she'd gotten lost in the woods...

"Hetty," she said, and another pearl fell out of her mouth.

A gasp rippled through the crowd. " _Hetty_ ," the villagers repeated in wonder and dove to the ground one after the other as Hetty looked on in bemusement.

She... must've wandered much further than she thought.

 

* * *

  _3\. Accept the offerings of devotion._

* * *

 

The villagers were so very good to her.

This was no exaggeration: the villagers were the most generous and hospitable people Hetty ever seen.

Not only did let her stay in the only inn they had free of charge, but they also shared her with the juciest fruits, the most heavenly pot pies she'd ever eaten, the tenderest steak from the best cattle. They also insisted that she discard her wornout smock, dirty apron and headchief in favour of lovely dresses with flowers embroidered along the hem or collar, and crowns made with with roses that fell out of her mouth and were dethorned with care.

At first Hetty humbly refused the more extravagant offerings, timidly letting the villagers know that a simple loaf of bread and some berries would do as well as a five-course meal and a secondhand smock, the elaborate dresses that the women took to making with unrivaled enthusiasm. But the instant a frown creased her face the villager chanced to see it would give a cry of dismay (the women were especially good with this, pitching their distraught voices so high that Hetty had to keep herself from wincing, unpleasantly reminded of Fanny and Mamna), and when she attempted to turn down the latest offering, the villagers would shake their heads and sigh and whip themselves into a frenzy, lamenting that of _course_  she wouldn't accept it, of _course_ it was beneath her.

And so Hetty stopped refusing.

It was, of course, easier for her to do so. The villagers seemed happiest when they were attempting to outdo one another in terms of hospitality. So delighted did they become whenever Hetty thanked them (jewels and flowers falling out her mouth as she did so, a sight that never failed to take the villagers' breaths away each time it happened) that she wouldn't have spoken contrarily in the first place if not out of common courtesy. She was used to living with simple means, after all.

But if Hetty was to be honest with herself, the situation she'd found herself in was not bad at all.

It'd been so long since she'd eaten anything more refined than scraps of meal leftovers, or worn clothes that felt as soft against her skin as the dresses Fanny often had her move around her wardrobe. So long since she slept in a room that she could call it her own and believe it.

Surely Hetty could be excused for enjoying herself?

 

* * *

  _4\. Spread the word._

* * *

 

Really, Hetty should've known better.

At first she'd accepted their gifts and offering of hospitality gladly, thinking that she may stay a little while in the village before braving the woods once more. (The memory of Mamma, running close behind with her face an ugly puce and her hand held aloft, was the subject of Hetty's nightmares and many a night she'd be frightened into awakeness, sitting upright and gasping, her room in the inn suddenly unfamiliar to her.)

But Hetty found herself making excuses, pushing the prospect of venturing into the woods out of her mind, delaying her departure for a bit longer. No, longer.

And, before she knew it, she had stayed in the village for months.

Looking at her room, with its masterfully embroidered curtains and carpets, the porcelain vase filled with water and roses freshly fallen from her mouth, and the bed with mother of pearls set into the frame, Hetty reluctantly admitted to herself that she'd made a mistake.

Hetty was determined to remedy things at once. And so into the leather bag the tanner'd given her as an offering went the least elaborately embroidered dress, as well as five pairs of the softest woolen stockings she'd ever worn. Then, standing at the side of her bed, she took a deep breath and let the words of gratitude pour out of her heart.

Jewels and roses were the least she could give the villagers in return, after all.

When she finished separating the diamonds, roses and pears, she slung her bag over her shoulder, clutched the leather strap firmly and strode to the door.

Little did she know that her hesitant inquiry for directions would bring lead to her confiding her innermost secret and propel her to living godhood.

 

* * *

  _5\. Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labour._

* * *

 

When Crown Prince Erasmus, ordered by his King father to investigate the curious case of the living goddess in the Ullralian countryside, was admitted into Her Ladyship Hetitia's shrine, he took one look at the beauty standing on the dais and sank gracefully to one knee.

"Well, count me a believer," murmured Erasmus, staring in awe as the beauty's pale cheeks tinted rose in embarrassment (or so he assumed).

Never before had Hetty wanted to box someone's ears as much as she did then.


End file.
